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®I|0  Initio r0ttg  uf  OHjiragn 

FOUNDED    BY    JOHN    D.    ROCKEFELLER 


Some  Elizabethan  Opinions  of  the 
Poetry  and  Character  of  Ovid 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND 

LITERATURE   IN    CANDIDACY   FOR   THE  DEGREE   OF 

DOCTOR  OF   PHILOSOPHY 

(department    of    ENGLISH) 


BY 
CLYDE  BARNES  COOPER 


MENASHA.    WIS. 

THE    COLLEGIATE    PRESS 

GEORGE    BANTA    PUBLISHING    CO. 

1914 


N 


m53i.eLi'ii% 


The  literary  fortunes  of  the  Roman  poet  Ovid  are  little  short 
of  the  marvelous.  Accorded  among  his  own  people  a  rank  second 
only  to  that  of  Virgil,  distinguished  for  admirable  narrative,  tender 
elegy,  and  for  at  least  one  notable  experiment  in  tragedy — the  lost 
Medea,  he  received  even  in  his  own  lifetime  that  striking  mixture  of 
praise  and  censure  that  has  continued  to  the  present.^ 

Throughout  mediaeval  literature  his  influence  was  potent  and 
pervasive.^  He  appears  in  various  ways  in  Italian,  Provengal,  Span- 
ish, Bohemian,  German,  Icelandic,  French,  and  English.  He  was  a 
main  source  of  inspiration  for  the  first  part  of  the  Roman  de  la 

^  For  remarks  of  Seneca  and  of  Quintilian  on  the  character  of  Ovid,  see 
Teuffel-Schwabe-Warr :   Hist,  of  Roman  Lit.,  I,  p.  495. 

*The  character  and  extent  of  the  references  to  Ovid  during  the  Middle 
Ages  in  England  may  be  seen  in  part  by  consulting  the  carefully  prepared 
indexes  to  the  following:    (Rolls  Series.) 

Warner,  G.  F. :    Giraldi  Cambrensis  Opera.    VIII  vols. 

Haydon,  F.  S. :    Eulogium  Historiarum. 

Anstey,  H. :    Munimenta  Academica.     II  vols. 

Riley,  H.  T. :    Chronica  Monasterii  S.  Albani. 

Luard,  H.  R. :     Roberti  Grosseteste Epistolae. 

Luard,  H.  R. :     Annales  Monastici. 

Lumby,  J.  R. :     Polychronicon  Ranulphi  Higden.     IX  vols. 

Wright,  Th. :     Alexandri  Neckham  de  Naturis  Rerum  Libri  Duo. 

Madden,  Sir  F. :     Matthaei  Parisiensis  Historia  Anglorum.     Ill  vols. 

Luard,  H.  R. :    Flores  Historiarum. 

The  mast  extensive  collection  of  mediaeval  citations  of  Ovid  is  in 
Manitius :  Beitrdge  sur  Geschichte  des  Ovid  im  Mittelalter.  Philologus, 
Suppl.  VII  (1899),  pp.  721  ff. 

No  study  of  Ovid  in  mediaeval  literature  such  as  Comparetti's   Virgilio 
nell  medio  evo  has  yet  appeared.     The  following  references  are  of  value: 
Bartsch,  Karl:  Albrecht  von  Halberstadt  und  Ovid  im  Mittelalter.     Qued- 

linburg,  1861. 
Belloni,  Egidio :     Note  sulle  traduzione  dell'  Arte  Amatoria  e  dei  Remedia 

Amoris  d'Ovidio  anteriori  al  Rinascimento.     Bergamo,   1892.     Completed 

study,  Turin,  1900  [Romania,  22,  339,  and  29,  630]. 
Cloetta,  W. :  Beitrage  zur  Litteraturgeschichte  des  Mittelalters  und  der  Ren- 
aissance.   Erster  Theil,  Halle,  1890.    P.  164  ff. 
Dernedde,  R. ;  Uber  die  den  altfr.     Dichtern  bekannten  epischen  Stoffe  aus 

dem  Altertum.     Gottingen,  1887. 
Kiihlhom,  G. :   Das  Verhaltnis   der   Art  d'amors  des  Jacques  d'Amiens  zu 

Ovids  Ars  amatoria.    Quedlinburg,  1908. 


QAA-a  r^fi 


2  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

Rose,^  and  he  supplied  a  code  of  laws  for  the  Courts  of  Love.*  The 
poem  Flamenca,  says  Mr.  Ker,  "is  really  the  triumph  of  Ovid  over 
all  his  Gothic  contemporaries.""'  Monastic  annalists  frequently 
quote  him,"  and  the  numerous  manuscripts  bear  witness  to  his 
popularity.'  Dante  makes  some  hundred  references  to  Ovid,  and 
ranks  him  third  among  tlie  four  great  poets  of  the  world.®  Chaucer 
and  Cower  knew  him  well,  as  did  a  host  of  lesser  men.®  The  med- 
iaeval mind,  however,  approached  the  classics  in  its  own  way.  The 
schoolmen  admired  Virgil's  Fourth  Eclogue  because  they  saw  there 
a  prophecy  of  the  birth  of  Christ.^**  Allegorizing  was  the  recog- 
nized mode  of  interpretation ;  and  the  ingenuity  that  exercised  itself 
on  the  mystic  properties  of  numbers  and  the  hidden  significations 
of  the  parts  of  speech  saw  justifiable  meanings  in  even  the  most 
licentious  passages  in  Ovid,  and  insisted  that  here  also  were  moral 
and  religious  lessons  had  one  but  the  wit  to  find  them.^^    As  Canon 

Neilson,  W.  A. :  The  Origins  and  Sources  of  the  Court  of  Love.     Harvard 

Studies  and  Notes — Vol.  VI,  pp.  170-212,  The  Ovidian  Tradition. 
Runge,  O. :  Die  Metamorphoseon-Verdeutschung  Albrechts  von  Halberstadt 

Berlin,  1908.     Palaestra — No.  72i- 
Sudre,  L. :   Publii   Ovidii   Metamorphoseon  libros  quomodo  nostrates  medii 

aevi  poetae  imitati  interpretatique  sunt.  Paris,  1893.  [Romania,  22,  242] 
Sandys,  J.  E. :  History  of  Classical  Scholarship.  Cambridge,  1906.  Page  638, 
Seldmayer,  H. :    Beitrage  zur   Geschichte  der   Ovid-Studien   im   Mittelalter 

Wiener  Studien,  VI.  1884. 
'  E.  Langlois :    Origines  et  sources  du  Roman  de  la  Rose,  pp.  69-75. 

*  L.  F.  Mott :    The  Court  of  Love,  p.  55. 
^  Epic  and  Romance,  p.  361. 

°  Indexes  to  the  Rolls  Series. 

'  Teuffel-Schwabe-Warr :   Hist,  of  Roman  Lit.,  I,  sec.  249,  note  3. 

'  Scartazzini :    Enciclopedia  Dantesca,  II,  p.  1412. 

Moore:    Studies  in  Dante,  pp.  206-228. 

Inferno,  Canto  IV,  line  90. 

*  Skeat :    Chaucer,  VI,  p.  387. 
Lounsbury:   Studies  in  Chaucer,  II,  251-252. 

G.  C.  Macaulay :    The  Complete  Works  of  John  Gower,  IV,  p.  369  ff. 
"^  Greenough  :    The  Greater  Poems  of  Virgil,  notes,  p.  27. 
For  the   best   account   of   the   legend,   see   Comparetti :     Virgil   in    the 
Middle  Ages,  Eng.  trans,  by  Benecke. 
"  See  below,  note  46. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  3 

J,  Janssen  has  shown,  mediaeval  writers  employed  such  Latin 
authors  as  they  knew  as  aids  toward  a  deeper  knowledge  of  Chris- 
tianity and  as  incentives  toward  a  purer  moral  life.^^ 

In  the  Renaissance  also  Ovid  was  a  great  favorite  with  painter, 
poet,  and  cultivated  readers  generally.^^  To  an  astonishingly  early 
reading  of  that  poet  Montaigne  ascribed  his  love  of  literature, 
although  in  later  life  his  fondness  for  Ovid  left  him/^  Clement 
Marot  promised :  "de  tout  mon  povoir  suyvre  et  contrefaire  la 
veine  du  noble  poete  Ovide."  ^^  Of  the  whole  Rhetorical  School 
in  France,  M.  Guy  observes:  "Le  poete  qu'ils  preferent,  c'est  Ovide; 
viennent  ensuite  Virgile,  Horace,  Terence."^^  During  the  same 
period,  however,  appeared  also  the  note  of  disparagement  or  cen- 
sure, as  may  be  seen  in  the  following  opinions.  Thus  in  1450  ^neas 
Sylvius  remarked  in  his  De  Liberorum  Educatione:  "Ubique  tristis, 
ubique  dulcis  est,  in  plerisque  tamen  locis  nimium  lascivus."" 
And  Ludovicus  Vives,  whose  writings  were  widely  influential,  ob- 
served in  his  De  Tradendis  Disciplinis,  1555:  "Imo  vero  amissa 
sunt  tot  philosophorum  et  sacrorum  autorum  monumenta,  et  grave 
erit  et  non  ferendum  facinus,  si  TibuUus  pereat  aut  Ars  Amandi 
Niasonis."  ^^  The  latter  statement  is  not,  of  course,  to  be  inter- 
preted as  evidence  of  a  special  attack  on  Ovid.  As  will  appear  in 
the  course  of  the  discussion,  it  is  really  but  a  part  of  the  prevailing 
attitude  toward  the  claims  of  poetry.  But  it  shows  that  in  the  very 
heyday  of  his  fame  doubt  and  censure  were  mingled  with  the 
praise  of  Ovid. 

That  Elizabethan  poets  and  playwrights  had  a  special  fondness 
for  the  poetry  of  Ovid  has  long  been  a  commonplace  of  English 

"J.  Janssen:  History  of  the  German  People  at  the  Close  of  the  Middle 
Ages.   English  trans.,  London,  1896.    I,  p.  63. 

"The  painters  of  the  Renaissance  found  Ovid  a  source  of  suggestion  for 
mythological  subjects.  Cf.  Schoenfeld,  P.:  Ovids  Metaniorphosen  in  ilirem 
Verhdltnis  zur  antiken  Kunst.  Wunderer,  W. :  Ovids  Werke  in  ihrem  Ver- 
hdltnis  zur  antiken  Kunst. 

"  Montaigne :   Essays,  trans,  by  Cotton,  I,  p.  204. 

'^^Oeuvres  de  Clement  Marot,  Lyon,  1870,  II,  p.  154. 

"  L'Ecole  des  Rhetoriquers,  p.  10. 

"  Elyot :    The  Governour.    Ed.  Croft,  I,  p.  124,  note. 

"lb. 


4  SOME   ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

literary  history.^^  Mr.  Alfred  Dorrinck,  in  the  conclusion  of  his 
dissertation,  Die  lateinischen  Zitate  in  den  Dramen  der  ■miclitigsten 
Vorgdnger  Shakespeares,  p.  75,  gives  the  following  table  of  cita- 
tions: Catullus  I,  Cicero  11,  Claudian  i,  Gellius  i,  Horace  16, 
Juvenal  3,  Lucan  i,  Martial  i,  Ovid  54,  Plautus  11,  Pliny  i,  Pub- 
lilius  Syrus  i,  Seneca  7,  Statius  i,  Terence  14,  Virgil  12.  Herein 
he  sees,  "Die  grosse  Vorliebe  der  Elisabethaner  fiir  Ovid."  This 
judgment  is  further  supported  by  the  investigations  of  Mr.  Karl 
Frey.-°  In  his  essay,  Ovid  and  Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  Sidney  Lee 
has  sketched  the  vogue  of  Ovid  from  1200  to  1700,  maintaining 
that  the  poet  appealed  to  readers  of  all  classes  and  was  an  educational 
manual  in  all  schools  and  colleges  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.^^ 
Here,  as  well  as  in  his  Life  of  Shakespeare,'^'^  he  points  out  the 
latter's  indebtedness  to  Ovid,  a  view  thoroughly  confirmed  by  Mr. 
R.  K.  Root.^^  In  the  same  w^ay  Mr.  R.  Bayley  regards  "ultra-classi- 
cism" as  a  characteristic  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  even  of  the 
plays  destined  solely  for  the  popular  stage.  "To  the  plebeian 
crowd,"  he  thinks,  "fully  one-half  of  the  Elizabethan  drama  must 
have  been  caviare  utterly  beyond  their  reach."  ^* 

Mr.  McKerrow,  however,  in  his  edition  of  Nashe,  reaches  the 
conclusion  that  Roman  authors  were  not  the  favorite  reading  of 
the  average  literary  man  of  the  period.^^  Hence,  "the  ultimate  debt 
of  Elizabethan  literature  to  the  classics  is  hardly  at  all  a  debt  at 
first  hand."  The  reason  given  for  this  latter  view  is  that  there  v/ere 
numerous  collections  of  scraps  of  Latin,  from  which  Nashe  and 
others  might  have  drawn.  Numbers  of  illustrations  and  proverbs 
in  Latin  were  current.  Such  books  as  Lilly's  Latin  Grammar,  Eras- 
mus's Paraholae,  or  the  Sententiae  Pueriles  would  serve  as  sources 

"  Cambridge  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.,  IV,  p.  22. 

^  Die  hlassische  Cotter-  und  Heldensage  in  den  Dramen  von  Marlowe, 
Lyly,  Kyd,  Creene  und  Peele.    Karlsruhe,  1909. 

**  Quarterly  Review,  No.  210. 

"  Ed.  of  1909,  p.  262. 

**  Classical  Mythology  in  Shakespeare,  pp.  3-10. 
Cf.  H.  R.  D.  Anders:    Shakespeare's  Books,  pp.  21-30. 

24  The  Shakespeare  Symphony,  Ch.  10. 

^Vol.  V,  p.  133  ff. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  5 

for  large  numbers  of  the  quotations  of  the  time.  "Interlarding 
one's  work  with  quotations  was  a  favorite  practice."  In  the  case 
of  Nashe,  his  reading  "seems  to  have  been  limited  to  Ovid,  a  play 
of  Plautus,  the  Epistles  of  Horace,  and  perhaps  some  plays  of 
Terence."  Nashe  has  one  hundred  quotations  from  Ovid,  twenty 
from  Homer,  and  twelve  from  Virgil.^''  But  so  many  of  these 
are  vague  in  character  or  had  appeared  in  Lilly,  that  Nashe  "need 
never  have  opened  a  volume  of  Ovid  in  his  life."^'' 

The  importance  of  the  foregoing  will  escape  no  one.  In  any 
problem  of  classical  influence  in  the  Sixteenth  Century  it  will  not 
suffice  merely  to  exhibit  an  array  of  quotations  or  allusions.  An 
effort  must  be  made  to  discover  whether  the  author  is  depending 
on  current  collections  of  sayings  or  on  his  own  reading  of  the 
classics.^^  Particularly  does  this  condition  apply  to  the  work  of 
so  eminently  quotable  an  author  as  Ovid.  For  citations  from  him 
appear  in  the  school  grammars  of  both  Linacre  and  Lilly.^^  In  the 
school  curricula  he  has  a  prominent  place.  Thus  Wolsey's  plan  of 
studies  for  Ipswich  School  (1528)  directed:  "The  party  in  the 
seventh  Form  should  regularly  have  in  hand  either  Horace's  Epistles 
or  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  or  Fasti."^^  Bishop  Pilkington's  Statutes 
of  Rivington  Grammar  School  (1566)  recommended,  among  other 
Latin  texts,  Epistolae  Ovidii.^^  Brinsley  translated  Tristia  and 
Metamorphoses  according  to  his  own  special  plan  of  instruction, 
and  recommended  versification  on  Ovidian  models.^-  Hoole  recom- 
mended that  De  Tristihus  be  learned  memoriter,  "to  impart  a  lively 
pattern  of  hexameters  and  pentameters."^^ 

To  the  Elizabethan  reader,  as  to  all  others,  a  chief  source  of 
attraction  in  Ovid  lay  in  his  superb  gift  as  a  story-teller.     And 

"  See  Vol.  V,  p.  313,  for  Index  of  Allusions. 

"^Ib.,  p.  134. 

"*  Cf .  M.  B.  Ogle:  Classical  Literary  Tradition  in  Early  German  and 
Romance  Literature.    Mod.  Lang.  Notes,  Dec,  1912. 

*  Watson,  F. :    The  English  Grammar  Schools  to  1660,  p.  245. 
""  lb.,  p.  472. 
^  lb.,  p.  472. 
""lb.,  p.  357. 
"^  lb.,  p.  371. 


O  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

although  in  him  as  in  Spenser,  "the  narrative  may  be  said  to  fall 
below  the  highest  order  in  that  the  independence  of  the  character  is 
merged  in  description  and  sequence  of  events",^*  he  remains  one  of 
the  favorite  narrative  poets  of  the  world.  By  common  consent,  he  is 
master  of  the  art  of  transition  and  skillful  variation  of  material. 
With  unerring  instinct  he  seizes  upon  the  essentials  of  his  narrative, 
apparently  with  no  thought  of  any  lesson  to  teach  or  moral  to  impart. 
Of  the  Metamorphoses  Mackail  justly  observes:  "One  might  almost 
say  that  it  is  without  moral  quality.  Ovid  narrates  the  treachery  of 
Scylla  or  the  incestuous  passion  of  Myrrha  with  the  same  light  and 
secure  touch  as  he  applies  to  the  charming  idyl  of  Baucis  and  Phil- 
emon or  the  love-tale  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe ;  his  interest  is  in  what 
happened,  in  the  story  for  the  story's  sake."  ^^  The  Elizabethan 
poet  and  his  audience  were  almost  as  insistent  upon  story.^® 

Moreover,  Ovid  was  a  master  of  verse-form.  As  a  result  of  his 
extraordinary  mastery  of  the  elegiac  couplet :  "The  usage  was  stereo- 
typed by  his  example ;  all  through  the  Empire  and  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  even  down  to  the  present  day,  the  Ovidian  metre  has  been  the 
single  dominant  type :  and  though  no  one  ever  managed  it  with  such 
ingenuity  again,  he  taught  enough  of  the  secret  to  make  its  use 
possible  for  almost  every  kind  of  subject."^^  "For  the  metre  of 
the  Metamorphoses  Ovid  chose  the  heroic  hexameter,  but  he  used 

it  in  a  strikingly  new  and  original  way Ovid's  hexameter 

is  a  thing  of  his  own.  It  becomes  with  him  almost  a  new  metre — 
light,  brilliant,  and  rapid,  but  with  some  monotony  of  cadence,  and 
without  the  deep  swell  that  it  had,  not  in  Virgil  only,  but  in  his 

"*  W.  P.  Ker :   Epic  and  Romance,  p.  33. 
'^Latin  Literature,  p.  141. 

*  Specific  obligations  of  the  dramatists  to  Ovid  are  presented  in : 
Dorrinck,  A. :    Die  lateinischen  Zitate  in  den  Dramen  der  wichtigsten 
Vorg'dnger  Shakespeares.     Strassburg,  1907. 

Frey,  K. :    Die  klassische  Cotter-  und  Heldensage  in  den  Dramen  von 
Marlowe,  Lyly,  Kyd,  Greene  und  Peele.    Karlsruhe,  1909. 

Kettler,  F. :    Lateinische  Zitate  in  den  Dramen  der  namhaften  Zeitge- 
nossen  Shakespeares.    Strassburg,  1909. 

Rupf,  P. :   Die  Zauberkomodie  vor  Shakespeare. 
Root,  R.  K. :    Classical  Mythology  in  Shakespeare. 
^'  Mackail :   Latin  Literature,  p.  138. 


THE    POETRY    AND     CHARACTER    OF    OVID  7 

predecessors.     The  swift,  equable  movement  is  admirably  adapted 
to  the  matter  of  the  poem."  ^^ 

Ovid's  gift  of  penetrating  insight  into  human  character,  especially 
so  far  as  its  foibles  and  weaknesses  are  concerned,  also  must  have 
appealed  to  an  age  that  delighted  in  the  satirist  and  the  character 
writer.  He  furnished  some  of  the  keenest  shafts  in  Ben  Jonson's 
Epicoene.^^ 

Professedly  devoted  to  the  ideas  and  fashions  of  his  own  times, 
Ovid  is  one  of  the  nearest  to  us  of  the  poets  of  the  ancient  world. 
He  expresses  his  own  attitude  thus : 

Prisca  invent  alios,  ego  me  nunc  denique  natum 
Gratulor:   haec  aetas  moribus  apta  meis. 
And  this  might  have  served  as  a  motto  for  the  Elizabethan. 

Moreover,  the  poetry  of  Ovid  has  the  charm  of  romantic  atmos- 
phere and  suggestiveness,  which  has  often  been  compared  to  the 
Arabian  Nights.  The  world  of  the  Metamorphoses  is  not  the  actual 
world ;  it  is  pervaded  by  the  fabulous  and  the  superhuman.  Simcox 
calls  the  poem  "the  most  romantic  work  in  Latin  literature."^*' 

Perhaps  the  strongest  single  reason  for  the  popularity  of  Ovid 
lies  in  what  Mr.  Ronald  Bayne  calls  "the  intensely  sensuous  nature 
of  the  Elizabethan" ;  *^  and  Professor  Saintsbury,  "the  peculiar 
Renaissance  note,  the  union  of  sensual  and  intellectual  rapture."  *^ 

The  greatest  value  of  Ovid  as  a  source  lies  in  the  fact  that  his 
works  are  a  storehouse  of  classic  myths.  Not  only  did  he  present 
the  great  stories  of  Greece  and  Rome  with  freshness,  charm  and 
permanent  power  of  appeal ;  but  he  transmitted  a  rich  fund  of 
mythological  lore  the  sources  of  which  are  frequently  obscured  or 
lost  beyond  recovery.  It  was  largely  or  entirely  through  the  poems 
of  Ovid  that  many  writers  became  acquainted  with  the  riches  of 
classical  mythology.  Nowhere  else  was  such  a  wealth  of  legend 
to  be  found  in  so  attractive  a  form. 

''  lb.,  p.  141. 

'°  P.  Chasles  :    Theatre  anglais,  p.  135. 
*"  History  of  Latin  Literature,  I,  p.  354. 
*^  Cambridge  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.,  VI,  p.  370. 
^Hist.  of  Eng.  Lit.,  p.  268. 


8  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

In  the  following  pages  an  attempt  is  made  to  assemble  the 
more  typical  expressions  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  poetry  and 
character  of  Ovid.  The  one  aim  has  been  to  try  to  see  the  poet  as 
the  Elizabethans  saw  him.  To  the  possible  objection  that  there 
was  no  "Elizabethan"  attitude  on  this  matter,  that  the  citations 
represent  only  partial,  scattered,  and  individual  views,  it  may  be 
replied  that  this  must  be  true  of  almost  any  other  similar  study. 
In  dealing  with  matters  of  this  kind,  one  must  not  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  one  has  to  do  with  varying  expressions  of  personal  feeling 
and  judgment,  and  must  not  obscure  the  situation  with  any  general 
term.  At  the  same  time  Hennequin  has  shown  the  value  of  noting 
the  groups  of  admirers  and  critics  of  a  widely  influential  writer  in 
order  to  form  thereby  some  conception  of  the  literary  and  moral 
ideals  of  a  given  epoch. *^  What  the  Elizabethans  thought  of  Ovid 
is  not,  so  far  as  classical  scholarship  is  concerned,  a  matter  of 
very  great  moment.  As  a  side-light  on  their  ideas  and  tastes,  what 
they  thought  of  the  poet  has  its  interest,  as  indeed  must  everything 
have  that  relates  to  this  fascinating  period.  Moreover,  the  attitude 
of  the  times  under  consideration  toward  Ovid  was,  in  the  main, 
but  part  of  a  larger  and  far  more  vital  question — the  right  of 
poetry  to  exist. 

As  for  the  expressions  of  concern  for  poetry  and  for  some  at 
least  of  the  more  or  less  labored  and  pedantic  defenses  that  figure 
in  the  ensuing  pages,  the  reader  may  perhaps  feel — 
Non  tali  auxilio  nee  defensoribus  istis 
tempus  eget. 

But  such  was  by  no  means  the  position  of  those  whose  utterances 
are  to  be  here  considered.  Those  who  really  believed  that  much  of 
the  poetry  regarded  as  classic  offended  the  moral  or  religious  sensi- 
bilities, demanded  an  answer  to  charges  which  they  preferred  in- 
sistently and  in  language  that  could  not  be  mistaken.  These  charges 
were  not  infrequently  occasions  for  embarrassment  and  for  resort 
to  what  may  sometimes  appear  to  us  mere  tricks  of  desperation. 
It  remained  for  Sir  Philip  Sidney  to  make  the  one  great  apology 
of  his  time  by  transcending  in  a  serene  and  noble  way  the  turmoil 
and  logomachy  which  is  here  passed  in  review. 

"La  Critique  Scientifique.    Paris,  1888. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  9 

Widely  scattered  and  radically  differing  expressions  of  opin- 
ion with  regard  to  the  personality  and  works  of  Ovid  appear  in 
England  from  Sir  Thomas  Elyot's  The  Governour  (1531)  to  Dry- 
den's  Preface  to  the  Fables  (1700).  With  very  general  agreement 
that  the  poems  often  give  occasion  for  offense  to  the  moral  sense, 
and  in  some  instances  with  extremely  plain  speaking  upon  this 
matter,  writers  commonly  see  one  of  two  possibilities.  Some  would 
condemn  the  poems  to  what  they  regarded  as  well-merited  oblivion, 
while  others  would  have  recourse  to  what  they  considered  a  sort 
of  Higher  Criticism.  They  would  separate  the  good  from  the  evil 
in  the  poems,  and  ignoring  or  forgetting  the  latter,  make  the  utmost 
profit  out  of  the  good.  On  their  favorite  analogy  of  the  bee,  which 
extracts  honey  from  even  the  most  poisonous  plants,  they  would, 
moreover,  find  some  profit  in  the  evil  itself.  The  latter  very  natu- 
rally, therefore,  attach  peculiar  importance  to  the  manner  of  read- 
ing or  interpretation.  Moralization,  based  on  the  assumed  under- 
lying allegory,  or  in  some  cases  very  numerous  allegories,  is  the 
alchemy  with  which  they  would  transmute  the  baser  metal.  What 
appears  to  the  hasty  reader  or  to  the  untrained  mind  as  a  "filthy 
fable"  must  in  this  view  be  "moralized  in  its  kind" ;  whereupon 
it  yields  matter  "both  pleasant  and  profitable,"  thereby  justifying 
the  oft-quoted  Horatian  maxim. 

This  method  of  interpretation  goes  back,  of  course,  to  the 
"moralized  Ovids"  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  early  Renaissance, 
and  is  typified  by  the  Metamorphosis  Ovidiana  moralitcr  a  Magistro 
Thoma  Walleys  Anglico  de  professione  Praedicatoruni  sub  sanctis- 
simo  patre  Dominico  explanata.  This  work  was  first  printed  at 
Paris  in  1509;  and  again  in  1510,  with  the  text  of  Ovid,  at  Lyons. 
J.  B.  Haureau  **  has  shown  that  Thomas  of  Wales  really  had 
nothing  to  do  with  this  work,  which  is  to  be  ascribed  to  Pierre 
Bersuire,  (d.  1362).  M.r.  F.  G.  Stokes,  in  his  edition  of  Epistolae 
Obsciirorum  Vironim,^-'  gives  an  illuminating  specimen  of  the  four- 
fold method  of  interpretation  in  the  work  of  Bersuire.  It  may  be 
taken  as  typical  of  its  kind.  Applying  this  method  to  the  fable  of 
Saturn,  we  have  the  following  meanings : 

**  Academic  des  Inscriptions  et  Belles  Lettres,  tome  XXX,  pp.  44-55. 
"*  P.  74,  note. 


10  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

(Literaliter)  "Saturn  is  said  to  devour  his  own  sons,  because 
a    person   born    under   tbe   'constellation'   of    Saturn    rarely   lives." 

(Naturaliter)  "Saturn  devours  his  own  sons,  because  he  signifies 
Time,  and  whatsoever  is  born  of  Time  is  by  Time  wasted  and 
consumed." 

(Historialiter)  "Saturn  was  King  of  Crete,  of  whom  his  brother 
Titan  predicted  that  one  of  his  sons  would  drive  him  from  the 
throne.  Whereupon  he  determined  to  devour  his  sons  and  avert 
the  evil  fate." 

(AUegorice)  "An  avaricious  man,  armed  with  rapine  as  with  a 
scythe,  devours  his  children,  in  the  sense  that  by  his  extortions  he 
impoverishes  them  and  consumes  their  substance." 

The  method  of  interpretation  illustrated  by  the  foregoing  ex- 
tract has  played  a  tremendous  role  in  the  history  of  human  thought. 
First  seen  in  the  fragments  of  Aristobulus,  the  method  culminated 
in  the  work  of  Philo  Judaeus,  On  the  Allegories  of  the  Sacred 
Laws.'^^  It  developed  in  an  attempt  to  reconcile  Greek  philosophy 
with  Jewish  legislation,^^  and  followed  lines  that  had  already  been 
applied  to  the  study  of  Homer.*®  Founded  on  the  sincerest  of 
motives,  and  dedicated  to  the  most  pious  purposes,  it  came  to, be 
regarded  during  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  very  pillar  of  the  faith.  It 
gave  pith  and  point  to  religious  instruction  and  furnished  ideals  for 
human  conduct.  The  leading  exponent  of  the  allegorical  method 
of  scriptural  interpretation  was  Origen.*^  Clement  of  Alexandria 
declared  that  all  scripture  must  be  allegorically  understood.^"  Al- 
though there  were  protests  against  the  views  of  Origen,  and  against 

"Farrar,  F.  W. :    History  of  Interpretation,  p.  127. 
For  a  summary  of  Philo's  rules,  see  pp.  139-157. 

Seeberg,  R. :    Lehrbuch  der  .DogmengescJiicJite,  I,  52  flF. 
Cf.  Hatch :    The  Hibhert  Lectures,  1888,  pp.  59-65 ;    66-79. 
Bigg :    The  Christian  Platonists,  pp.  36-58 ;    92 ;    134. 
Davidson,  S. :    Sacred  Hermeneutics,  Ch.  IV. 
"  Farrar,  op.  cit.,  p.  131. 
"  lb.,  p.  125. 
**  lb.,  p.  177. 
"  lb.,  p.  183. 
Cf.  Ebert,  A. :   Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Literatur  des  Mittelalters  im 
Ahendlande,  Vol.  I,  pp.  139;  147;  150;  215;  245;  378;  516;  550;  596. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  II 

what  appeared  to  be  hazardous  extensions  of  the  idea,®^  the  ad- 
herents of  the  allegorical  method  ultimately  carried  the  day.^^  It 
became  the  recognized  method  of  scholastic  exegesis,  as  is  exempli- 
fied notably  in  the  works  of  Aquinas.^^  Despite  the  sincerity  of 
the  motives,  there  is  small  room  for  doubt  that  the  persistent 
tendency  to  seek  for  veiled  meanings  in  even  the  most  literal  state- 
ments exercised  a  dangerous  fascination  over  certain  types  of  mind, 
and  led  directly  or  indirectly  to  excess,  exaggeration,  and  puer- 
ilities of  all  sorts.  Brunetiere  remarks  in  this  connection:  "Un- 
fortunately, if  the  intentions  were  excellent,  the  method  was  false; 
— for  the  idea  did  not  become  clearer  in  proportion  as  recourse  was 
had  more  and  more  to  allegory; — and  the  writers  got  further 
away  from  truth  and  nature  in  the  same  proportion.  This  is 
what  Petrarch  meant  when  he  made  the  authors  of  the  Roman  de 
la  Rose  the  reproach  that  their  'Muse'  was  asleep ; — and  when  he 
contrasted  with  their  coldness  the  passionate  ardour  breathed  by 
the  verses  'of  those  divine  singers  of  love',  Virgil,  Catullus,  Pro- 
pertius,  and  Ovid."  ^*  Before  the  dawn  of  critical  scholarship  such 
intellectual  exercises  were  doomed  to  lead  to  wild  inconsistencies 
when  they  concerned  themselves  with  the  classics.  To  what  lengths 
they  actually  did  go  in  this  direction  Comparetti  has  given  ample 
illustration  in  his  famous  account  of  Virgil  in  the  Middle  Ages.'® 
If  Virgil  became  to  the  popular  imagination  a  wizard  and  a  pro- 
phet of  Christ,  we  need  feel  no  surprise  when,  in  1467,  a  monk 
of  Paris  copies  the  Ars  Amandi  "ad  laudem  et  gloriam  Virginis 
Mariae."  ^^  Horace,  as  Stemplinger  has  shown,  met  with  the  same 
general  treatment.^^  A  curiously  belated  example  of  the  method 
is  to  be  found  in  two  poems  by  Laurence  le  Brun  (1607-1663)  : 

^  Farrat,  pp.  206-222. 

''  lb.,  p.  239. 
See  also  the  summary  in  Taylor,  H.  O. :    The  Classical  Heritage  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  pp.  97-103. 

^'Farrar,  p.  271. 
Cf.  Haureau,  B. :  Histoire  de  la  philosophie  scolastique.  Vol.  I,  Chap.  III. 

^^  Manual  of  the  History  of  French  Literature,  trans,  by  R.  Derechef,  p.  27. 

^^  English  trans,  by  Benecke.    London,  1888. 

"^Monnier:   Le  Quattrocento,  Vol.  I,  p.  113. 

^'^  Das  Fortleben  der  Horazischen  Lyrik  seit  der  Renaissance,  p.  26. 


12  SOME    ELIZAUETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

Virgiliiis  Christianus  and  Ovidiiis  Christianus.  In  the  second  of 
these  the  Metamorphoses  undergo  transformation  into  stories  of 
converted  penitents."'^  The  spirit  of  Pierre  Bersuire  lived  on  in 
Webbe,  Harington,  Golding,  Sandys,  Garth,  and  many  others;  it 
colored  the  whole  Elizabethan  attitude  toward  Ovid  and  toward 
the  general  interpretation  of  poetry. 

Occasionally,  to  be  sure,  a  voice  was  raised  in  protest.  Thus 
in  his  Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man,  Tyndale  found  cause  for 
indignation  at  the  methods  of  the  schoolmen  in  the  fact  that,  "some 
v/ill  prove  a  point  of  the  Faith  as  well  out  of  a  fable  of  Ovid  or  any 
other  poet,  as  out  of  St.  John's  Gospel  or  Paul's  Epistles. "^^  An 
allegory  in  itself,  he  thinks,  "proveth  nothing,  neither  can  do.  For 
it  is  not  the  scripture,  but  an  ensample  or  a  similitude  borrowed 
of  the  scripture,  to  declare  a  text  or  a  conclusion  of  the  scripture 

more  expressly  and  to  root  it  and  grave  it  in  the  heart If 

I  could  not  prove  with  an  open  text  that  which  the  allegory  doth 
express,  then  were  the  allegory  a  thing  to  be  jested  at,  and  of  no 
greater  value  than  a  tale  of  Robin  Hood."  ®°  Although  he  admits 
the  utility  of  allegory  under  proper  conditions,  Tyndale  warns 
expressly  against  its  dangers :  "Finally,  beware  of  allegories ;  for 
there  is  not  a  more  handsome  or  apt  thing  to  beguile  withal  than 
an  allegory.  And  contrariwise;  there  is  not  a  better,  vehementer, 
or  mightier  thing  to  make  a  man  quickwitted  and  print  wisdom  in 
him,  and  make  it  to  abide,  when  bare  words  go  but  in  at  the  one 
ear,  and  out  at  the  other."  ®^  Whitgif  t  is  equally  plain  in  his 
warning  as  to  the  dangers  attendant  upon  the  method:  "All  men 
know  how  uncertain  a  reason  it  is  that  is  grounded  upon  figures  and 
types,  except  the  application  thereof  may  be  found  in  the  scriptures. 
For  a  man  may  apply  them  as  it  pleaseth  him,  even  as  he  may  do 
in  allegories."  °^  Whitaker  argues  to  the  same  purpose :  "We 
affirm  that  there  is  but  one  true,  proper  and  genuine  sense  of  scrip- 
tures, arising  from  the  words  rightly  understood,  which  we  call 

"  Diciionnaire  Universelle,  X,  p.  291. 

"*  TjTidale's  Works,  Parkei^  Society,  I,  p.  306. 

•^  lb.,  p.  428. 

~Ib. 

•'  Works,  Parker  Society,  II,  p.  92. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  13 

the  literal :  and  we  contend  that  allegories,  tropologies  and  ana- 
gogues  are  not  various  senses,  but  various  collections  from  one 
sense,  or  various  applications  and  accommodations  of  that  one 
meaning The  sense  of  scripture,  therefore,  is  but  one."  ^^ 

Expressions  such  as  the  foregoing  were,  however,  restricted 
to  the  field  of  theological  controversy  and  appear  to  have  exerted 
little  influence  on  the  current  application  of  allegorical  interpretation 
to  works  of  literature.  Apparently  not  even  the  keenest  satire 
availed  at  once  to  wean  the  minds  of  readers  and  commentators 
from  their  delight  in  subtleties  and  far-fetched  interpretations. 
Letter  number  28  of  the  Epistolae  Virorum  Obscurorum,  as  trans- 
lated by  Mr.  Stokes,  reads,  in  part,  as  follows : 

"I  already  know  by  rote  all  the  fables  of  Ovid  in  his  Meta- 
morphoses, and  these  I  can  expound  quadruply — to  wit,  naturally, 
literally,  historically,  and  spiritually — and  this  is  more  than  the 
secular  poets  can  do 

"You  will  hence  understand  that  nowadays  these  Poets  do  but 
study  their  art  literally,  and  do  not  comprehend  allegorizing  and 
spiritual  expositions :  as  saith  the  Apostle,  'The  natural  man  re- 
ceiveth  not  the  things  of  the  spirit  of  God.' 

"Now  you  may  ask  where  I  have  obtained  this  subtle  skill.  I 
reply  that  I  lately  bought  a  book  composed  by  a  certain  English 
Doctor  of  our  Order,  Thomas  of  Wales  by  name ;  and  the  book  is 
all  writ  concerning  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  explaining  each  story 
allegorically  and  spiritually,  and  its  profoundity  in  Theology  pas- 
seth  belief. 

"Most  assuredly  hath  the  Holy  Spirit  inspired  this  man  with  so 
great  learning,  for  in  his  book  he  setteth  forth  the  harmonies  be- 
tween the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  fables  of  the  Poet,  and  of  these 
you  may  judge  from  the  instances  subjoined. 

"Of  the  Python  that  Apollo  slew,  the  Psalmist  saith,  'This 
dragon  which  thou  hast  formed,  to  play  therein !'  And,  again, 
'Thou  shalt  walk  upon  the  asp  and  the  basilisk.' 

'^^  A  Disputation  on  Holy  Scripture,  Parker  Society,  p.  404. 


14  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

"Concerning  Saturn — who  is  always  feigned  an  old  man,  and 
the  father  of  the  gods — devouring  his  own  children,  Ezekiel  saith: 
'The  fathers  shall  eat  the  sons  in  the  midst  of  thee.' 

"Diana  signifieth  the  Blessed  Virgin,  Mary 

"Cadmus,  too,  seeking  for  his  sister,  is  a  figure  of  Christ  who 
seeketh  for  his  sister,  to  wit,  the  soul  of  man;  and  he  buildeth  a 
city,  that  is,  the  Church. 

"Concerning  Actaeon,  who  beheld  Diana  naked,  Ezekiel  prophe- 
sied, saying  'Thou  wast  bare  and  full  of  confusion,  and  I  passed 
by  thee  and  saw  thee.' 

"Not  without  cause  is  it  written  in  the  Poets  that  Bacchus  was 
twice  born,  for  by  him  is  denoted  Christ,  who  was  twice  born 

"Semele  also,  who  nursed  Bacchus,  is  an  image  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin. 

"All  this,  and  much  more,  I  have  learned  out  of  that  book. 
If  you  were  but  with  me  you  should  behold  marvelous  things. 

"And  that  is  the  way  in  which  we  ought  to  study  Poetry." 

Here  is  keen  satire  of  the  allegorical  method  uncontrolled  by 
reason  and  accurate  knowledge,  a  satire  addressed,  with  a  final 
thrust,  to  Prater  Dollenkopfius  (Dunderhead).  Rabelais,  too,  poked 
fun  at  the  method,^*  though,  as  may  be  seen,  without  destroying 
so  deeply  rooted  a  mental  habit,  or  shaking  its  hold  on  such  writers 
as  were  determined  to  read  moral  truths  and  allegorical  lessons 
into  the  Metamorphoses,  and  were  carried  away  with  the  exercise 
of  intellectual  subtlety  in  the  face  of  what  were  seemingly  the 
greatest  difficulties.  Rather  perhaps  it  was  the  very  consciousness 
of  such  difficulties  and  the  delight  in  appearing  to  reconcile  them 
that  spurred  such  minds  on  to  further  effort.  It  was  an  absorbing 
game. 

In  The  Governour  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  gives  first  place  in  the  study 
of  poetry  to  Homer,  an  eminence  not  called  in  question  in  any  of 
the  works  under  review. ^^  He  recommends,  however,  that  some 
Latin  author  be  studied  along  with  the  Greek:  "and  especially 
Virgile ;  which,  in  his  wark  called  Eneidos,  is  most  like  to  Homere 
in  latine and   none   one   autor    serueth   to    so   diuers    wits 

"  Trans,  by  Urquhart.  Book  I,  Ch.  58. 

"*  Cf.  Prolong  of  the  first  Bulk  of  Eneados,  by  Gavin  Douglas,  ed.  J.  Small. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  1 5 

as  doth  Virgile wherefore  he  is  in  the  order  of  lernyng 

to  be  preferred  before  any  other  autor  latine."  *^  "I  woulde  set 
nexte  to  him  two  bookes  of  Ouid,  the  one  called  Metamorphosios, 
whiche  is  as  moche  as  to  say  as,  chaungynge  into  other  figure  or 
fourme :  the  other  is  entitled  De  fastis:  where  the  ceremonies  of  the 
gentiles,  and  especially  the  Romanes,  be  expressed  :  bothe  right  neces- 
sary for  the  understandynge  of  other  poetes.  But  by  cause  there 
is  litell  other  lernyng  in  them,  concernyng  either  vertuous  maners 
or  policie,  I  suppose  it  were  better  that  as  fables  and  ceremonies 
happen  to  come  in  a  lesson,  it  were  declared  abundantly  by  the 
maister  than  that  in  the  said  two  bokes,  a  longe  tyme  shulde  be 
spente  and  almost  lost :  which  mought  be  better  employed  on  suche 
autors  that  do  minister  both  eloquence,  ciuile  policie,  and  exhor- 
tation to  vertue.  Wherefore  in  his  place  let  us  bring  in  Horace,, 
in  whom  is  contayned  moche  varietie  of  lernynge  and  quicknesse 
of  sentence."  ^^ 

Incidentally  to  his  statement  of  the  proper  subjects  of  instruc- 
tion, Elyot  opens  what  was  to  prove  a  long  and  absorbingly  inter- 
esting debate  by  undertaking,  "to  shewe  what  profite  may  be  taken 
by  the  diligent  reading  of  auncient  poetes,  contrarye  to  the  false 
opinion,  that  nowe  rayneth,  of  them  that  suppose  that  in  the  works 
of  poetes  is  contayned  nothynge  but  baudry,  (suche  is  their  foule 
worde  of  reproche),  and  unprofitable  leasinges."^®  The  cause  of 
such  an  error  of  judgment  is,  in  Elyot's  opinion,  ignorance.  "But 
they  whiche  be  ignoraunt  in  poetes  wyll  perchaunce  obiecte,  as  is 
their  maner,  agayne  these  verses,  saying  that  in  Therence  and 
other  that  were  writers  of  comedies,  also  Ouide,  Catullus,  Martialis, 
and  all  that  route  of  lasciuious  poetes  that  wrate  epistles  and  ditties 
of  loue,  some  called  in  latin  Elegiae  and  some  Epigrammata,  is 
nothynge  contayned  but  incitation  to  lechery."  *^ 

Such  a  view  Elyot  undertakes  to  refute  by  dwelling  on  the 
"good  sentences",  even  in  what  he  regards  as  the  extreme  case 
of  "Ouidius,  that  seemeth  of  all  poetes  lasciuious,  in  his  mooste 

•*  Croft's  ed.,  I,  p.  66. 
"  lb.,  pp.  67-68. 
**  lb.,  p.  123. 
~  lb.,  p.  123. 


l6  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

wanton  bokes  [who  still]  hath  right  commendable  and  noble  sen- 
tences; as  for  proufe  thereof  I  will  recite  some  that  I  have  taken 
at  aduenture."  ^°  And  here  he  translates  lines  131  to  136  of  De 
Remedio  Amorls.  In  fine,  he  makes  a  plea  in  extenuation:  he 
cannot  deny  that  there  are  matters  in  his  author  that  may  justly 
give  offense ;  but  he  still  maintains  that  whatever  is  good  in  the 
poet  should  be  turned  to  enjoyment  and  profit.  On  the  whole, 
this  may  be  regarded  as  a  very  characteristic  expression  of  the 
more  moderate  view  that  prevailed  throughout  the  period.  In 
the  case  of  Ovid  and  in  that  of  the  poets  of  love  generally  it 
was  frankly  admitted  that  occasions  for  ofifense  to  moral  ideals  were 
sometimes  given.  The  defense  generally  made  was  that  such  oc- 
casions were  negligible,  or  at  least  should  not  be  allowed  to  out- 
weigh the  excellencies  of  the  poet.     So  Elyot  argues : 

"Martialis,  whiche,  for  his  dissoulute  wrytynge,  is  mooste  sel- 
dome  radde  of  men  of  moche  grauitie,  hath  not  withstandynge 
many  commendable  sentences  and  right  wise  counsailes,  as  among 
diuers  I  will  reherce  one  which  is  first  come  to  my  remembrance. 

If  thou  wylte  eschew  bytter  aduenture. 

And  auoide   the  gnawynge  of   a  pensifull   harte, 

Sette  in  no  one  persone  all  holy  thy  pleasure, 

The  lasse  ioy  shalte  thou  haue  but  the  lasse  shalte  thou  smarte. 

"I  coulde  recite  a  great  nombre  of  semblable  good  sentences  out 
of  these  and  other  wanton  poetes,  who  in  the  latine  do  expresse 
them  incomparably  with  more  grace  and  delectation  than  our 
englische  tonge  may  yet  comprehende. 

"Wherefore  sens  good  and  wise  mater  may  be  picked  out  of 
these  poetes,  it  were  no  reason,  for  some  lite  mater  that  is  in  their 
verses,  to  abandone  therefore  al  their  warkes,  no  more  than  it  were 
to  forbeare  or  prohibite  a  man  to  come  into  a  faire  garden,  lest 
the  redolent  sauors  of  swete  herbes  and  floures  shall  meue  him  to 
wanton  courage,  or  leste  in  gadring  good  and  holsome  herbes  he 

may  happen  to  be  stunge  with  a  nettile Semblablye  if  he 

do  rede  wanton  mater  mixte  with  wisedome,  he  putteth  the  warst 
under  foote  and  sorteth  out  the  best,  or,  if  his  courage  be  stered 
or  prouoked,  he  remembereth  the  litel  pleasure  and  gret  detriment 

"  lb.,  p.  133- 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  I7 

that  shulde  ensue  of  it,  and  withdrawynge  his  minde  to  some  other 
studie  or  exercise  shortly  forgetteth  it 

"So  all  thoughe  I  do  nat  approue  the  lesson  of  wanton  poetes 
to  be  taughte  unto  all  children,  yet  thynke  I  conuenient  and  neces- 
sary that,  whan  the  mynde  is  become  constant  and  courage  is 
asswaged,  or  that  children  of  their  naturall  disposition  be  shamfaste 
and  continent,  none  auncient  poete  wolde  be  excluded  from  the 
lesson  of  suche  one  as  desireth  to  come  to  the  perfection  of  wyse- 
dome."  '^ 

In  The  Scholemaster,  published  in  1568,  Ascham  lays  no  stress 
on  the  reading  of  Ovid :  Varro,  Sallust,  Caesar,  and  Cicero  are  his 
favorites  as  subjects  of  instruction.  And  he  approves  the  dictum 
of  Sir  John  Cheke — "I  would  haue  a  good  student  passe  and  iorney 
through  all  authors  both  Greke  and  Latin :  But  he  that  will  dwell 
in  these  few  books  onelie :  first,  in  Gods  holie  Bible,  and  than 
ioyne  with  it,  TuUie  in  Latin,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Xenophon,  Isocrates, 
and  Demosthenes  in  Greke :  must  nedes  proue  an  excellent  man."''^ 
Erasmus,  De  Ratione  Stiidii  Commentariolus  (15 12)  recommends 
that  the  teacher  "should  himself  have  travelled  through  the  whole 

circle  of  knowledge among  the  poets.  Homer  and  Ovid."" 

Webbe,  however,  in  his  essay  Of  English  Poetry  carries  Elyot's 
view  still  further :  "For  surelie  I  am  of  this  opinion  that  the 
wantonest  Poets  of  all,  in  their  most  laciuious  workes  wherein 
they  busied  themselues,  sought  rather  by  that  meanes  to  withdraw 
mens  mindes  (especiallie  the  best  natures)  from  such  foule  vices 
then  to  allure  them  to  imbrace  such  beastly  follies  as  they  de- 
tected." '^ 

So  far  then  the  lover  of  poetry  and  the  friend  of  Ovid  had 
before  him  certain  ^learly  defined  possibilities.  Enjoying  and  ap- 
propriating whatever  was  good  in  the  poet,  he  could  ignore  or 
forget  any  "unhonest  matter",  he  could  regard  it  as  an  exemplum, 
he  could  "moralize  it  in  its  kind",  or  he  could  explore  the  mine 

"lb.,  pp.  123-131. 

"  G.  G.  Smith :    Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  I.  p.  18. 

"W.  H.  Woodward:  Desiderius  Erasmus  Concerning  the  Aim  and 
Method  of  Education,  p.  167. 

''^G.  G.  Smith:    Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  I,  p.  251. 


l8  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

of  allegory  for  meanings  and  lessons  completely  hidden  from  the 
eyes  of  the  ignorant  reader.  And  although  Homer  and  Virgil  had 
distinctly  greater  claims  upon  his  attention,  he  could  find  in  Ovid 
"right  commendable  and  noble  sentences."  Turning  now  to  the 
more  distinctively  critical  writers,  such  as  are  represented  in  Mr. 
G.  G.  Smith's  Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  one  sees  at  once  the 
limitations  and  the  experimental  character  of  their  work.  With 
them  the  chief  object  of  concern  was  not  Ovid,  or  indeed  any  one 
poet.  Rather  were  they  interested  in  the  nature  and  scope  of 
poetry  and  in  the  validity  of  its  claims  to  the  attention  of  serious 
men.  Such  expressions  of  opinion  about  Ovid  as  have  come  down 
to  us  from  the  more  obviously  critical  writings  are,  therefore, 
mainly  incidental  to  the  wider  and  more  absorbing  question.  Sincere 
if  narrow-minded  men  like  Gosson  were  ready  to  condemn  the  art 
of  poetry  because  of  the  outrage  to  their  moral  ideals  which  they 
found  in  such  poems  as  the  Ars  Amandi  or  the  Metamorphoses. 
Others  like  Breton  felt  that  poetry  was  but  "a  study  of  Idleness", ^'^ 
and  to  be  tolerated  only  as  a  form  of  relaxation  from  the  sober 
and  practical  affairs  of  the  day.  Others  who  raUied  to  the  defense 
of  poetry  and  who  insisted  that  the  errors  and  shortcomings  of 
one  poet  were  not  sufficient  to  condemn  the  art  itself,  were  never- 
theless not  always  agreed  that  it  was  something  to  be  prised  and 
cultivated  for  its  own  sake.  Golding,  Lodge,  Webbe,  and  others, 
with  whatever  delight  they  may  have  read  poetry  and  discussed 
it  with  their  intimates,  ventured  to  defend  the  poems  of  Ovid  only 
on  the  ground  that  superior  insight  into  such  matters  or  the  proper 
method  of  interpretation  enabled  them  to  see  deep  meanings  of 
moral  or  philosophical  import  where  ignorant  or  untrained  readers 
saw  only  "toyes." 

Most  blatant  of  all  was  Stephen  Gosson  in  his  Schoole  of  Abuse 
(1579).     In  his  strictures  on  the  poetic  art  he  lays  stress  on  the 

fact  that  "Ouid  bestirreth  himself  to  paint  out  his  Flea  "^ 

[and  shows]  his  cunning  in  the  inceste  of  Myrrha,  and  that  trumpet 
of  Baudrie,  the  Craft  of  Loue."  "^     He  expresses  approval  of  the 

"  A  Packet  of  Letters.  Book  II,  Letter  XVI. 

™  G.  G.  Smith:   Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  I,  p.  364,  note.    The  reference 
is  to  the  pseudo-Ovidian  De  PuUce. 
"  Arber's  ed.,  p.  19. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  19 

fact  that  Augustus  banished  the  author,  whom  he  terms  "the  high 
martial  of  Venus  fielde,"  and  "the  amorous  Scholemaister."^®  ^Direct 
issue  to  this  position  is  taken  in  the  swiftly  ensuing  and  vigorous 
Defence  of  Poetry  by  Thomas  Lodge.  "Haue  you  not  reason", 
he  asks,  "to  waye  that  whatsoeuer  either  Virgil  did  write  of  his 

gnatt  or  Ouid  of  his  fley  was  all  couertly  to  declare  abuse? 

you   remember  not  that under  the  shadow   of   byrds, 

beastes,  and  trees  the  follies  of  the  world  were  desiphered ;  you 
know  not  that  the  creation  is  signified  in  the  Image  of  Prometheus, 
the  fall  of  pride  in  the  person  of  Narcissus;  these  are  toyes,  because 
they  sauor  of  wisdome  which  you  want."  ^^  Here  again  recourse 
is  had  to  allegory,  and  the  critic  is  charged  with  ignorance  in  that 
he  failed  to  interpret.  Moreover,  "Quids  abuses,  in  describing 
whereof  you  labour  very  vehementlye,  terming  him  letcher,  and 
in   his   person   dispraise   all   poems:   but   shall   on(e)    man's   follye 

destroye  a  universal  commodity? I  like  not  of  an  angrye 

Augustus  which  wyll  banishe  Ouid  for  enuy.  I  loue  a  wise  Senator, 
which  in  wisedome  wyll  correct  him,  and  with  aduise  burne  his 
follyes."  ^°  Not  content  with  thus  meeting  the  objections  of  Gosson, 
Lodge  is  drawn  on  by  the  fluency  of  the  Latin  poet  to  exclaim: 
"Who  liketh  not  of  the  promptness  of  Ouid?  who  not  unworthily 
could  boast  of  himself  thus,  Quicquid  conabar  dicere  versus  erat. 
Who  then  doth  not  woonder  at  poetry?  Who  thinketh  not  that 
it  proceedeth  from  aboue."  ®^ 

The  sage  and  serious  doctrine  of  allegorical  interpretation 
aroused  even  greater  enthusiasm  in  William  Webbe.  The  essay 
Of  English  Poetry  (1586)  has  this  to  say:  "Ouid,  a  most  learned 
and  exquisite  Poet.  The  work  of  greatest  profite  which  he  wrote  was 
his  Booke  of  Metamorphosis,  which  though  it  consisted  of  fayned 
Fables  for  the  most  part,  and  poetical  inuentions,  yet  beeing  mora- 
lized according  to  his  meaning,  and  the  trueth  of  euery  tale  beeing 
discouered,  it  is  a  work  of  exceeding  wysedome  and  sounde  iudge- 
ment.     If  one  lyst  in  like  manner  to  haue  knowledge  and  perfect 

^'  Arber's  ed.,  p.  29. 

''*  G.  G.  Smith :    Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  I,  p.  65. 

"•lb.,  p.  75. 
"  lb.,  p.  70. 


20  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

intelligence  of  those  rytes  and  ceremonies  which  were  obserued 
after  the  Religion  of  the  Heathen,  no  more  profitable  worke  for 
that  purpose  then  his  bookes  De  fastis.  The  rest  of  his  dooinges, 
though  they  tende  to  the  vayne  delights  of  loue  and  dalliaunce 
(except  his  Tristibus  wherein  he  bewayleth  his  exile),  yet  surely 
are  mixed  with  much  good  counsayle  and  profitable  lessons,  if 
they  be  wisely  and  narrowly  read."  ^-  Webbe  believed  that  his 
countrymen   owed  a  great  debt  to   Master  Arthur  Golding,   "for 

his  labour  in  englyshing  Ouids  Metamorphosis to  profit 

this  nation  in  all  kind  of  good  learning."  ^^  Webbe  is  ready  too 
with  an  answer  to  the  censure  of  the  moralist:  "Nowe,  if  the  ill 
and  undecent  prouocations  whereof  some  unbridled  witts  take  oc- 
casion by  the  reading  of  laciuious  Poemes,  bee  objected — such  as 

are  Ouids  loue  Bookes  and  Elegies I  thinke  it  easily 

aunswered.  For  though  it  may  not  iustlie  be  denied  that  these  workes 
are  indeed  very  Poetrie,  yet  that  Poetrie  in  them  is  not  the  essential! 
or  formall  matter  or  cause  of  the  hurt  therein  might  be  affirmed  .  .  . 
.  .  the  workes  themseules  doo  not  corrupt,  but  the  abuse  of  the 

vsers Ouid,  in  his  most  wanton  Bookes  of  loue  and  the 

remedies  thereof,  hath  many  pithy  and  wise  sentences,  which  a 
heedfull  Reader  may  marke  and  chose  out  from  the  other  stuffe."^^ 

Here  we  are  on  famihar  ground,  as  we  are  also  in  Nashe's 
Anatomie  of  Absurditie.  "1  woulde  not  haue  any  man  imagine  that  in 
pray  sing  of  Poetry  I  endeuor  to  approue  Virgils  vnchast  Priapus,  or 
Ouids  obscenitie :  I  commend  their  witte,  not  their  wantonnes,  their 
learning,  not  their  lust :  yet  euen  as  the  Bee  out  of  the  bitterest 
flowers  and  the  sharpest  thistles  gathers  honey,  so  out  of  the  filthiest 
Fables  may  profitable  knowledge  be  sucked  and  selected.  Neuer- 
thelesse,  tender  youth  ought  to  bee  restrained  for  a  time  from  the 

reading  of  such  ribauldrie they  that  couet  to  picke  more 

precious  knowledge  out  of  Poets  amorous  Elegies  must  haue  a  dis- 
cerning knowledge."*^  Furthermore  :  "When  as  lust  is  the  tractate 
of  so  many  leaues,  and  loue  passions  the  lauish  dispence  of  so  much 

''  lb.,  p.  238. 

^  Ed.  Arber,  p.  34. 

*■*  G.  G.  Smith :    EUsabefhan  Critical  Essays,  I,  p.  252. 

*^  Ed.  McKerrow,  I,  pp.  29-30. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  21 

paper,  I  must  needes  send  such  idle  wits  to  the  vicar  of  S.  Fooles 

Might   Quids   exile  admonish   such    Idlebies  to   betake 

them  to  a  new  trade Henceforth   let   them   alter   their 

posies  of  profit  with  intermingled  pleasure,  inserting  that  of  Quid 
in  steed. 

"Si  quis  in  hoc  artem  populo  non  nouit  amandi, 
Me  legat,  &  lecto  carmine  doctus  amet,"  ®^ 

The  attitude  of  distrust  toward  works  of  the  imagination  was, 
however,  not  to  be  cleared  away  by  any  single  utterance,  and  is 
perhaps  nowhere  more  characteristically  shown  than  in  Breton's 
A  Packet  of  Letters,  Book  II,  Letter  i6:  "And  take  heed  of  Poetry, 
lest  it  run  away  with  thy  wit :  for  it  hath  commonly  one  of  these 
three    properties,    belibelling    the    wicked,    abusing  the  honest,    or 

pleasing  the  foolish : in  a  word,  it  is  more  full  of  pleasure 

then  profit."  The  same  production  has  this  further  recommen- 
dation :  "Doe  thou  rather  reade  in  an  Euening,  then  make  thy  dayes 
worke  in  the  study  of  idlenesse."  Those  who  delighted  in  produc- 
tions, "where  more  is  meant  than  meets  the  ear",  would  fall 
back  on  such  statements  as  that  of  Wilson  in  The  Arte  of  Rhetor- 
iqiie:  "For  undoubtedly  there  is  no  one  tale  among  all  the  poets, 
but  under  the  same  is  comprehended  something  that  pertaineth, 
either  to  the  amendment  of  manners,  to  the  knowledge  of  truth, 
to  the  setting  forth  of  Natures  work,  or  els  the  understanding  of 
some  notable  thing  done."  ^^  With  that  belief  men  like  Golding, 
Sandys,  and  later  Garth  himself,  would  search  with  the  utmost 
diligence  for  every  trace  of  concealed  meaning  that  might  appear 
to  justify  their  admiration  for  a  given  author  and  for  the  art  itself. 
For  an  expression  of  this  point  of  view  even  the  most  enthusiastic 
of  them  could  scarcely  have  asked  for  more  than  was  offered  by  Sir 
John  Harington  in  his  vehement  Apologie  for  Poetrie  (1591). 
One  might  almost  be  tempted  to  regard  the  statement  as  a  parody; 
but  Harington  believed  that  he  was  fighting  Philistines,  and  he  was 
determined  to  make  out  his  case. 

"Perseus  sonne  of  lupiter  is  fained  by  the  Poets  to  haue  slaine 
Gorgon,  and  after  that  conquest  atchiued,  to  haue  flowen  up  to 

''lb.,  p.  10. 

"  Ed.   G.  H.  Mair,  p.  195. 


22  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

heauen.    The  Historicall  sence  is  this,  Perseus  the  sonne  of  lupiter, 

by  the  participation  of  lupiters  vertues  that  were  in  him 

slew  Gorgon  a  tyrant  in  that  country  (Gorgon  in  greeke  signifieth 
earth)  and  was  for  his  vertuous  parts  exalted  by  men  up  into 
heauen.  IMorally  it  signifieth  this  much,  Perseus  a  wise  man,  sonne 
of  lupiter  endewed  with  vertue  from  aboue,  slayeth  sinne  and  vice, 
a  thing  base  and  earthly ;  signified  by  Gorgon,  and  so  mounteth  up 
to  the  skie  of  vertue."  Another  allegory  is  then  declared,  and 
"also  another  Theological  AUegorie",  until  like  a  schoolman  of  a 
later  day  the  triumphant  apologist  tells  us :  "the  like  infinite  Al- 
legories I  could  pike  out  of  other  Poeticall  fictions  saue  that  I 
would  auoid  tediousnes.  It  sufficeth  me  therefore  to  note  this,  that 
the  men  of  greatest  learning  and  highest  wit  in  auncient  times  did 

of  purpose  conceale  these  deepe  mysteries  of  learning for 

sundrie  causes ; that  they  might  not  rashly  be  abused  by  pro- 

phane  wits [for]  conservation  of  the  memorie  of  their  pre- 
cepts:   to  be  able  with  one  kinde  of  meate  and  one  dish  (as 

I  may  so  call  it)  to  feed  diuers  tastes.  For  the  weaker  capacities 
will  feede  themseules  with  the  pleasantness  of  the  historic  and 
sweetnes  of  the  verse,  some  that  haue  stronger  stomackes  will  as 
it  were  take  a  further  taste  of  the  Morall  sence,  a  third  sort  more 
high  conceited  than  they,  will  digest  the  allegorie."  ®^ 

Allegorical  interpretation  had  by  no  means  gone  out  of  fashion. 
It  could  and  did  still  do  yeoman  service  for  the  champions  of  poetry. 
What  a  part  it  played  in  Elizabethan  literary  criticism  is  clearly 
pointed  out  by  Mr.  G.  G.  Smith. ®^  Bacon  himself  shared  the  cur- 
rent view  of  the  matter.  "Upon  deliberate  consideration,"  he  says 
in  De  Sapientia  Veterum,  "my  judgment  is  that  a  concealed  instruc- 
tion and  allegory  was  intended  in  many  of  the  ancient  fables."  He 
took  great  pride  in  his  interpretation  of  the  Orpheus  legend.  Long 
before,  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  had  been  sure  that:  "No  man  can  ap- 
prehende  the  very  delectation  that  is  in  the  leeson  of  noble  poetes 
unlasse  he  have  radde  very  moche  and  in  diuers  autors  of  diuers 
lernynges."  ®°      Gascoigne,    in    his    Notes    of    Instruction    (1575) 

^Haslewood,  II,  p.  128  ff. 

•*  G.  G.  Smith,  I,  pp.  XXIV-XXX. 

*°  The  Governour,  Bk.  I,  Ch.  XIII. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  23 

regards  the  ability  to  write  allegorically  as  a  badge  of  distinction: 

"I  woulde discouer  my  disquiet  in  shadowes  per  allegoriam, 

or  use  the  couertest  meane  that  I  could  to  auoyde  the  vncomely 
customes  of  common  writers."  ^^  Nashe  appears  to  take  a  sly  dig 
at  over-subtle  interpretations  of  Ovidian  story  thus:  "To  see  how 
lovingly  hee  made  the  sence  of  the  Apostle  and  Quids  fiction  of 

Phaetons  firing  of  the  world  to  kisse  before  they  parted was 

sport  enough  for  us  to  beguile  the  way."  "-  Gosson,  in  his  Schoole 
of  Abuse,  is  frankly  contemptuous  of  the  fashion:  "It  is  a  Pageaunt 
woorth  the  sight,  to  beholde  how  he  labors  with  Mountains  to 
bring  foorth  Mise."  ^^  So  J.  Eachard  makes  this  remark:  "It  is 
usually  said  by  those  that  are  intimately  acquainted  with  him,  that 
Homer's  Iliad  and  Odyssey  contain,  mystically,  all  the  Moral  Law 
for  certain,  if  not  a  great  part  of  the  Gospel  (I  suppose  much 
after  the  rate  that  Rabelais  said  his  Gargantua  contained  all  the 
Ten  Commandments)  but  perceivable  only  to  those  that  have  a 
poetical  discerning  spirit."  ®*  Owen  Felltham  was,  however,  of 
another  opinion.  In  his  Resolves^^  he  speakes  thus  Of  Poets  and 
Poetry:   "Surely  he  was  a  little  wanton  with  his  leisure,  that  first 

invented  Poetry But  the  Words  being  rather  the  drossie 

part,  conceit  I  take  to  be  the  principal.  And  here  though  it  disgress- 
eth  from  Truth,  it  flies  about  her,  making  her  more  rare,  by  giving 

curious  raiment  to  her  nakedness If  the  Learned  and 

Judicious  like  it,  let  the  Throng  bray Two  things  are  com- 
monly blamed  in  Poetry:  nay,  you  take  away  That  if  Them,  and 
these  are  Lyes  and  Flattery.  But  I  have  told  them  in  the  worst 
words :  For  'tis  only  to  the  shallow  insight  that  they  appear  thus. 
Truth  may  dwell  more  clearly  in  Allegory,  or  a  moral  'd  Fable, 

than  in  a  bare  Narration The  greatest  danger  that  I  find 

in  it  is  that  it  wantons  the  Blood,  and  Imagination ;  as  carrying  a 
man  in  too  high  a  Delight."  John  Davies  of  Hereford  was  moved 
to  declare  in  Humours  Heauen  on  Earth. -^^   "Poets,  whiche  all  men 

®^  The  Posies,  ed.  Cunliflfe,  p.  466. 

"  Ed.    McKerrow,  I,  p.  89. 

"'  G.  G.  Smith,  I,  p.  365. 

**  Arber :    English  Garner,  VII,  p.  253. 

*®  Ed.  of  1696,  p.  96. 

**His  note  to  stanza  148. 


24  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

taxe  for  lying,  doe  least  lie  of  any,  the  morall  of  their  fictions 
considered."  No  ordinary  ridicule  sufficed  to  strike  out  of  the  hand 
of  the  defender  of  poetry  his  trusted  weapon  of  allegory.  With 
that  he  felt  ready  to  meet  any  attack. 

The  most  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  the  poetry  of  Ovid  occurs 
in  the  introduction  of  Arthur  Golding  to  his  famous  and  widely 
influential  translation  of  the  Metamorphoses.  In  the  Dedication  of 
the  first  four  books  to  Leicester,  "at  Cecil  House,  the  23rd  day  of 
December,  1564,"  Golding  says: 

"If  this  woorke  was  fully  performed  with  like  eloquence  and 
connying  of  endyting  by  me  in  Englishe,  as  it  was  written  by  Thauc- 
thor  thereof  in  his  moother  tonge,  it  might  perchaunce  delight  your 
honor for  the  nomber  of  excellent  devices  and  fine  inven- 
tions conteined  in  the  same,  purporting  outwardly  moste  pleasant 
tales  and  delectable  histories,  and  fraughted  inwardlye  with  moste 
pithie  instructions  and  wholesome  examples,  and  conteynyng  bothe 
wayes  moste  exquisite  connynge  and  deepe  knowledge." 

In  the  dedicatory  epistle  of  1567  to  his  noble  patron,  Golding 
undertakes  to  show  by  elaborate  analysis  what  he  regards  as  the 
great  significance  of  the  poem.  Ovid  has  brought  the  entire  philoso- 
phy of  "turned  shapes"  into  "one  whole  masse."  The  poet  shows 
that  nothing  persists  without  change,  and  that  in  these  changes 
nothing  is  lost ;  that  the  soul  is  immortal ;  and  that  the  Pythagor- 
ean view  of  the  transmigration  of  the  soul  applies  to  the  spirit  of 
animal  life,  not  to  the  rational  soul. 

"and  in  all  are  pitthie  apt  and  pleyne 
Instructions  which  import  the  prayse  of  vertues,  and  the  shame 
Of  vices,  with  the  due  rewardes  of  eyther  of  the  same." 
Hence  the  translator  sees  in  the  Daphne  story  "a  myrror  of 

virginitee."     In  the   story  of  the   fall  of   Phaethon   he  reads  the 

miserable  end  of  youthful  ambition. 

"This  fable  also  dooth  advyse  all  parents  and  all  such 

As  bring  up  youth,  too  take  good  heede  of  cockering  them  too 

much. 
It  further  dooth  commend  the  meane :  and  willeth  too  beware 
Of  rash  and  hasty  promises  which  most  pernicious  are, 
And  not  to  bee  performed :  and  in  fine  it  playnly  showes 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  25 

What  sorrow  too  the  parents  and  too  all  the  kinred  growes 
By  disobedience  of  the  chyld :  and  in  the  chyld  is  ment 
The  disobedient  subject  that  ageinst  his  prince  is  bent." 

The  metamorphoses  of  the  crow  and  of  the  raven  warn  against 
the  consequence  of  ill  report ;  the  mishaps  of  Ocyroee  show  the 
perils  of  undue  curiosity ;  and  the  tale  of  Battus  is  to  be  taken  as 
"a  very  good  example"  for  the  covetous.  Those  who  delight  in 
hawking  and  hunting,  in  wantonness  and  gluttony 

"Upon  the  piteous  story  of  Actaeon  ought  to  think. 

For  theis  and  theyre  adherents  used  excessive  are  in  deede 

The  dogs  that  dayly  doo  devour  theyre  followers  on  with  speede." 

Thus  to  Golding  every  myth  is  an  exemplum,  and  from  that  point  of 

view  he  thus  sums  up  his  account : 

"Theis  fables  out  of  every  booke  I  have  interpreted, 
Too  shew  how  they  and  all  the  rest  may  stand  a  man  in  sted." 
The  next  object  of  the  translator's  concern  is  to  remind  his 
patron  that  the  ancients  in  their  ignorance  attributed  to  many  gods 
what  is  actually  the  will  of  "the  true  eternall  God." 

"For  Gods,  and  fate,  and  fortune  are  the  terms  of  heathenesse, 
If  men  usurp  them  in  the  sense  that  Paynims  doe  expresse." 

These  terms  Golding  proceeds  to  interpret,  admitting  the  while 
that  their  most  satisfactory  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  Scripture. 
Nevertheless,  he  insists  that  the  legends  that  employ  the  terms 
are  really  of  value  in  promoting  virtue  and  godliness,  especially 
since  in  the  opinion  of  many  pious  and  learned  men  the  legends 
originated  in  Scripture. 

"What  man  is  he  but  would  suppose  the  author  of  this  booke 
The  first  foundation  of  his  woorke  from  Moyses  wryghtings 

tooke? 
Not  only  in  effect  he  dooth  with  Genesis  agree. 
But  also  in  the  order  of  creation,  save  that  hee 
Makes  no  distinction  of  the  dayes." 
Not  only  does  Golding  square  to  his  own  satisfaction  Ovid's 
account  with  that  of  Moses,  but  he  further  argues  that  the  order  of 
creation  is  in  agreement.     According  to  this  position  Prometheus 
appears  to  be  "theternall  woord  of  God."     The  Golden  Age  finds 
its  counterpart  in  Eden ;   the  four  ages  have  biblical  parallels ;   and 


26  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

even  the  account  of  the  flood  is  satisfactory,  save  that  Ovid  was 
misled  as  to  the  date  because  in  his  account  he  followed  "the  boast- 
ful, shameless  Greeks." 
In  conclusion : 
"The  readers  therefore  earnestly  admonisht  are  too  bee 
Too  seeke  a  further  meaning  then  the  letter  gives  too  see, 
The  travell  tane  in  that  behalf  although  it  have  sum  payne 
Yet  makes  it  double  recompence  with  pleasure  and  with  gayne." 
No  one  is  more  insistent  than  Golding  that  the  reader  is  not  to 
take  ofifense  at   what  may  appear   to   him   wanton  word  or  lewd 
matter : 

"For  sure  theis  fables  are  not  put  in  wryghting  to  thentent 
Too  further  or  allure  too  vyce :  but  rather  this  is  ment, 
That  men  beholding  what  they  bee  when  vyce  dooth  reign  in  stead 
Of  vertue,  should  not  let  their  lewd  affections  have  the  head." 
In  his  Preface  to  the  Reader  Golding  makes  an  earnest  attempt 
to  guard  against  ofifense  "the  simpler  sort"  when  confronted  with 
the  many  names  of  pagan  deities.     He  sadly  admits  that : 

"The  trewe  and  ever  living  God  the  Paynims  did  not  knowe : 
Which  caused  them  the  names  of  Goddes  on  creatures  too 
bestowe." 
For  human  nature,  he  explains,  corrupted  by  Adam's  fall,  lost 
the  original  sparks  of  divine  grace  and  descended  into  superstitions 
of  all  sorts.    Satan  directing,  stars,  spirits,  animals,  and  even  human 
passions   became  objects   of   worship   among   the   pagans.      Myth- 
makers  had,  therefore,  an  ulterior  purpose  in  bestowing  the  various 
names   of   the   deities.     Hence   the  names  Jove   and  Juno   signify 
princes;  Ops  and  Saturn,  old  people;  Phoebus  signifies  the  young; 
Mars,  men  of  war;  Pallas,  the  learned,  and  so  on.     Moreover,  the 
proper  names  stand  for  various  other  things  which  the  translator 
leaves  to  the  interpretation  of  liis  readers : 

"Now  when  thou  readst  of  God  or  man,  in  stone,  in  beast,  or  tree 
It  is  a  mirror  of  thyself  thyne  owne  estate  too  see. 
For  under  feyned  names  of  Goddes  it  was  the  poets  guyse 
The  vice  and  faults  of  all  estates  too  taunt  in  convert  wyse 
And  likewyse  too  extoll  with  prayse  such  things  as  doo  deserve." 
The  various  metamorphoses  are  therefore  to  be  interpreted  in  a 
spiritual  sense,  and  are  related  both  for  pleasure  and  for  profit. 


THE    POETRY    AND     CHARACTER    OF    OVID  2y 

"Pleasant  terms  and  art"  are  employed  by  the  poet  in  order  to  hold 
the  attention  to  the  moral  lessons  in  the  legends.  And  if  these  lessons 
are  presented  in  veiled  or  dark  language,  it  is  in  order  to  make  their 
discovery  all  the  more  attractiye  to  the  reader.  On  his  part  certainly 
good  judgment  is  essential;  for  in  Golding's  view  the  poems  are 
flowers,  from  which  bees  will  extract  honey  and  spiders  poison. 
Those  who  cannot  brook  "the  lively  setting  forth"  of  the  work 
should  recognize  their  classification  as  readers  and  for  the  time 
being  at  least  leave  the  work  alone.  Thus  Golding  brings  his  in- 
troduction to  a  close,  not  hoping  to  have  equalled  "the  pleasant 
style"  of  his  original,  "who  in  that  all  other  doth  surmount."  He 
takes  satisfaction  in  having  presented  to  English  readers  a  "sea  of 
goodes  and  Jewelles,"  for  no  other  work  of  Ovid,  he  believes,  has 
more  mysteries,  sage  counsels,  good  examples,  fine  inventions, 
strange  variety,  and  wealth  of  information. 

Despite  the  familiar  sound  of  much  of  this,  it  is  clear  that  the 
translator  himself  believed  that  he  had  rendered  a  real  service.  His 
attitude  may  be  defensive  and  his  method  of  interpretation  still 
resolutely  allegorical ;  but  he  has  a  fine  and  infectious  enthusiasm  for 
his  original.  Twenty  years  later  Webbe  recognised  the  service  of 
Golding  to  the  nation  in  making  accessible  "all  kind  of  good  learn- 
ing,"^^  and  to  narrative  poets  and  dramatists  the  translation  became 
a  treasury  of  classic  myth  and  legend. 

It  remains  to  note  some  of  the  chief  obiter  dicta  relating  to  Ovid 
during  the  Elizabethan  period.  They  serve  to  illustrate  the  views 
expressed  in  the  preceding  discussion.  That  the  statements  here 
presented  are  not  more  numerous  or  more  extensive  is  due  in  part 
to  the  fact  that  they  antedate  historical  criticism  in  England  and  in 
part  to  the  fact  that  where  an  influence  is  so  widely  and  persistently 
felt  as  was  that  of  Ovid,  there  is  less  occasion  for  specific  acknowl- 
edgements. 

As  might  be  expected,  there  is  expression  of  the  view  that  Ovid 
was  a  corrupting  influence.  From  this  point  of  view  the  Ars  Amandi 
is  censured.     In  several  instances  the  poem  is  held  to  be  the  real 

"  A  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie,  ed.  Arber,  p.  34. 


28  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

cause  for  the  poet's  banishment  from  Rome.  George  Whetstone, 
in  his  Rocke  of  Regarde,  makes  Bianca  Maria  sum  up  her  evil  life 
thus: 

"The  Arte  of  Love  for  exercise  I  redde, 
And  thus  my  life  in  Venus  court  I  ledde."^^ 

A  naive  expression  of  the  same  view  appears  in  Tom  Tel- 
Trothes  Message: 

"Whilome  by  nature  men  and  women  loued, 
And  prone  enough  they  were  to  loue  thereby ; 
But  when  they  Quids  ars  amendi  proued, 
Both  men  and  women  fell  to  lecherie."^^ 

The  suggestive  quality  of  the  poem  is  recognised  by  John  Day  in 
his  lie  of  Guls  (produced  in  1605)  when  he  makes  the  gentleman 
in  the  prologue  call  for  scenes  "that  will  make  a  man's  spirits  stand 
on  their  tip  toes,  and  dye  his  blood  in  a  deep  scarlet  like  your  Ovid's 
Ars  Amandi.""° 

John  Davies  of  Hereford  regards  the  poem  as  the  antithesis  of 
his  own  ideals : 

"Whist,  Muse,  be  mute,  wilt  thou  like  Naso  proue. 

And  interlace  thy  Lynes  with  levity? 

Wilt  thou  add  Precepts  to  the  Arte  of  Loue, 

And  show  thy  vertue  in  such  vanity? 

So  to  pollute  thy  purer  Poesy  ?"^''^ 

He  makes  the  as  yet  unsullied  sheet  of  paper  thus  exclaim : 
"Another  (ah,  Lorde  helpe)  mee  vilifies 
With  Art  of  Loue,  and  how  to  subtilize."^"^ 

Nicholas  Breton  reflects  the  same  attitude  when  he  declares : 
"I  will  give  over  Artem  Amandi  and  I  will  with  thee  to  some  more 
worthy  study."^°^  Two  conditions  imposed  upon  Maurice  Byrchen- 
shaw   when   he   was   granted   laureation   at   Oxford   were   that   he 

»*  Ed.   J.  P.  Collier,  pp.  20-22. 

**  New  Sh.  Soc,  Series  VI,  p.  113. 

'~  Ed.   BuUen,  Prologue,  pp.  5-6. 

""  Ed.   Grosart,  I,  p.  67. 

**°Vol.  II,  p.  75,  Papers  Complaint. 

'""  The  Wil  of  Wit,  etc.,  ed.  Grosart,  II,  p.  12. 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  29 

should  write  the  required  number  of  verses  and  promise  not  to  read 
Ovid's  Art  of  Love  to  his  pupils.^'^* 

Although  even  now  the  precise  reason  for  the  banishment  of 
Ovid  is  unknown,  Elizabethan  writers  often  ascribe  the  punish- 
ment to  the  displeasure  of  Augustus  at  the  character  of  the  Ars 
Amandi.  Such  is  the  belief  of  Thomas  Becon :  "Was  not  the  poet 
Ovidius  banished  of  Augustus  Caesar  for  the  books  which  he  made 
De  Arte  Amandi  (he  might  more  justly  have  termed  them 
De  Arte  Meretricandi),  because  that  through  the  reading  of  them  he 
corrupteth  the  minds  of  the  youth. "^^^    The  views  of  Robert  Greene 

are  similar:    "Such  fantastike  poets who  with  Ouid 

seeke  to  nourish  vice  in  Rome  by  setting  down  Artem  Amandi,  and 
giuing  dishonest  precepts  of  lust  and  leacherie,  corrupting  youth 
with  the  expence  of  time,  vpon  such  f riuolous  fables ;  and  therefore 
deserue  by  Augustus  to  be  banished  from  so  ciuill  a  countrie  as  ItaUe, 
amongst  the  barbarous  Getes  to  liue  in  exile."^*'*^  In  Greenes 
Mourning  Garment  this  opinion  is  reiterated :  "Ouid,  after  he  was 
banished  for  his  wanton  papers  written  de  Arte  Amandi,  and  his 
amorous  Elegies  between  him  and  Corrina,  being  amongst  the 
barbarous  Getes,  and  though  a  Pagan,  yet  toucht  with  a  repenting 
passion  of  the  follies  of  his  youth,  hee  sent  his  Remedium  Amoris 
and  part  of  his  Tristibus  to  Caesar,  not  that  Augustus  was  forward 
in  those  fancies,  or  that  hee  sought  to  reclaim  the  Emperor  from  such 
faults;  but  as  a  gathering  by  infallible  coniectures,  that  hee  which 
seuerely  punished  such  lasciuious  liuers,  would  be  glad  to  hear  of 
their  repentant  labours.""^  The  legend  is  repeated  in  the  curious 
poem  entitled  Greenes  Vision}^^ 

"Quaint  was  Ouid  in  his  rime, 

Chiefest  poet  of  his  time. 

What  he  could  in  wordes  rehearse, 

Ended  in  a  pleasing  verse, 

Apollo,  with  his  ay-greene  baies, 

Crowned  his  head  to  shew  his  praise : 

And  all  the  Muses  did  agree, 
^"Austin  and  Ralph:    The  Lives  of  the  Poets  Laureate,  p.  5. 
^'^^  Sermons,  Parker  Soc.  p.  383. 

"°  Ed.  Grosart,  IX,  p.  294.    Cf.  pp.  9 ;    120 ;   221 ;   250. 
'■"  lb.,  p.  120. 
"*  lb.,  XII,  pp.  199-200. 


30  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

He  sliould  be  theirs,  and  none  but  he. 

This  Poet  chaunted  all  of  loue, 

Of  Cupids  wings  and  Venus  doue  : 

Of  faire  Corrina  and  her  hew, 

Of  white  and  red,  and  vaines  blew. 

How  they  loued  and  how  they  greed, 

And  how  in  fancy  they  did  speed. 

His  Elegies  were  wanton  all, 

Telling  of  loues  pleasing  thrall. 

And  cause  he  would  the  Poet  seeme. 

That  best  of  Venus  laws  could  deeme, 

Strange  precepts  he  did  impart. 

And  writ  three  bookes  of  loues  art. 

There  he  taught  how  to  woe, 

What  in  loue  men  should  doe. 

How  they  might  soonest  winne 

Honest  women  unto  sinne : 

Thus  to  tellen  all  the  truth, 

He  infected  Romes  youth : 

And  with  his  bookes  and  verses  brought 

That  men  in  Rome  naught  els  saught, 

But  how  to  tangle  maid  or  wife, 

With  honors  breach  through  wanton  life : 

The  foolish  sort  did  for  his  skill 

Praise  the  deepnesse  of  his  quill : 

And  like  to  him  said  there  was  none. 

Since  died  old  Anacreon. 

But  Romes  Augustus  worlds  wonder, 

Brookt  not  of  this  foolish  blonder : 

Nor  likt  he  of  this  wanton  verse. 

That  loves  lawes  did  rehearse 

For  well  he  saw  and  did  espie. 

Youth  was  sore  impaird  thereby : 

And  by  experience  he  finds. 

Wanton  bookes  infect  the  minds, 

Which  made  him  straight  for  reward, 

Though  the  censure  seemed  hard. 

To  banish  Ouid  quite  from  Rome, 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  3I 

This  was  great  Augustus  doome 

For  (quoth  he)  Poets  quils 

Ought  not  for  to  teach  men  ils." 
In  recognition  of  the  moral  significance  of  Ovidian  fable,  when 
read  with  due  reservations  and  in  the  light  of  allegorical  interpre- 
tation, very  little  appears  between  the  enthusiastic  praise  of  Golding 
in  1564  and  the  dedication)  in  1628  of  George  Sandys'  Ovids  Meta- 
morphoses Englished,  Mythologiz'd,  and  Represented  in  Figure.  In 
his  reliance  upon  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  concealed  lessons 
and  truths,  Sandys  was  as  thoroughgoing  as  Golding  had  been ;  but 
during  the  interval  far  less  enthusiasm  is  expressed.  William  Webbe 
regarded  the  Metamorphoses  as  the  most  profitable  of  Ovid's 
works;"®  and  be  praised  Golding  "for  his  labour  in  Englyshing 

Ouids  Metamorphosis to  profit  this  nation  in  all  kind  of 

good  learning."^^°  In  like  manner  Richard  Stanyhurst  observes  in 
his  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  ^neid  (1582)  :  "And  certes 
this  preheminency  of  writing  [the  interlacing  of  pleasure  with  pro- 
fit] is  chieflye too  bee  afifurded  too  Virgil  in  this  wurck 

and  too  Ouid  in  his  Metamorphosis.  As  for  Ennius,  Horace, 
luvenal,  Persius,  and  the  rabblement  of  such  cheate  Poets,  theyre 
dooinges  are,  for  fauore  of  antiquitye,  rather  to  bee  pacientlye  allowed 
then  highlye  regarded.""^  It  is  not  improbable  that  one  reason  for 
Stanyhurst's  summary  dismissal  of  the  "cheate  poets"  was  that  they 
did  not  appear  to  him  to  yield  the  familiar  moralizations.  John 
Taylor  found  moral  lessons  in  Ovid.  Though  admitting  that  he 
knew  no  language  save  his  own,  he  declares  that  he  had  read  Virgil- 
and  Ovid;"-  and  in  his  Verses  Presented  to  the  Kings  own  Hand 
expresses  the  following  opinion  : 

"In  Ouids  Metamorphosis  I  finde 

Transformed  Formes,  and  strange  misshapen  Shapes 

Of  humane  transmutations  from  their  kind 

To  Wolves,  to  Beares,  to  Doggs,  to  Pyes,  to  Apes ; 

Yet  these  were  but  Poetical!  escapes, 

(Or  Morallizing  of  unnat'rall  deeds) 

***/4  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie,  ed.  Arber,  p.  29. 

"•lb.,  p.  34. 

"*  G.  G.  Smith :    Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  I,  p.  136. 

^Workes,  Spenser  Soc,  Part  II,  p.  385. 


32  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

To  shew  that  Treasons,  Murders,  Incests,  Rapes,  < 

From  Bestiall  minds,  (in  human  forms)  proceeds.""''  i 

The  author  of  The  Fable  of  Ouid  treting  of  Narcissus  recognizes  i 

"Quids  meaning  straunge  '' 

That  wysdome  hydeth  with  some  pleasaunt  chaunge."  ' 

He  furthermore  asserts 

"That  Ouid  by  this  tale  no  folly  ment.""*  j 

Humfrey  Giflford  is  aware  that  i 

"The  bookes  of  Quids  changed  shapes  ' 

A  story  strange  doe  tell, 

How  Qrpheus  to  fetch  his  wife  i 

Made  voyage  unto  hell."^^^ 

Qf  opposing  opinions  in  this  connection  perhaps  no  one  is  more  ; 
clearly  stated  than  that,  which  appears  in  No  Whippinge,  nor  Trip- 

pinge,  etc.  (1601)  :  " 

"Let  Quid,  with  Narcissus  idle  tale, 

Weare  out  his  wits  with  figurative  fables.  ' 

Old  idle  Histories  grow  to  be  so  stale,  j 

That  clowns  almost  haue  bard  them  from  their  tables,  | 

And  Phoebus,  with  his  horses  and  his  stables,  i 

Leaue  them  to  babies :  make  a  better  choise  ^ 

Of  sweeter  matter  for  the  soules  reoice."^^^ 

■i 

In  Loves  Martyr  (1601),  Robert  Chester  appears  to  support  this  \ 

idea :  ; 

"Away  fond  riming  Quid,  lest  thou  write  ] 

Qf  Prognes  murther,  or  Lucretias  rape.""^  I 

Nicholas  Breton  writes  in  like  manner: 
"In  Quids  Metamorphosis 

I  read  there  of  a  spring,  ^ 

Whereby  Narcissus  caught  his  bane,  ^ 

"*  Spenser  Soc,  Vol.  XXI,  p.  8.  j 

"*  Pr.  by  Thomas  Hackette,  1560.  ; 

"'  Posie  of  GilloAowers,  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  I,  p.  50.  j 

"*  Ed.  C.  Edwards,  London,  1895.  *. 

"'  Ed.   Grosart,  New  Shakespeare  Soc,  Series  VIII,  2,  p.  38.  i 


THE    POETRY    AND    CHARACTER    OF    OVID  33 

(And)  only  with  looking 

If  this  be  false,  blame  Ouid  then 
That  such  a  tale  would  write.""* 
Although  the  consensus  of  opinion  clearly  awards  to  Virgil  pri- 
macy among  Latin  poets,  there  are  some  noteworthy  variations  of 
sentiment  with  regard  to  the  rank  of  Ovid.  He  is  called  in  the  poem 
Greenes  Vision  "chiefest  poet  of  his  time."  In  the  Gorgious  Gallery 
of  Gallant  Inventions  occurs  the  line 

"Ouid  yet  of  poets  prince,  whose  wit  all  others  past.""® 
Stanyhurst,  as  has  already  been  seen,  places  the  y^neid  side  by 
side  with  the  Metamorphoses   as  preeminent  in  the  mingling  of 
pleasure  with  profit.    In  his  Tragical  Tales  (1587)  George  Turber- 
vile  expresses  what  must  be  regarded  as  the  prevailing  opinion : 
"Two  things  in  cheefe  did  moue  me  thus  to  write. 
And  made  me  deeme  it  none  offence  at  all : 
First  Ouids  workes  bedeckt  with  deepe  delight, 
Whom  we  of  poets  second  best  doe  call."^^^ 
In  the  foregoing  discussion  Ovid  has  appeared  as  "the  amorous 
schoolmaster".     There  are  numerous  allusions   in   similar  strain. 
Thus,  in  the  introductory  compliments  on  Chapman's  poems,  "J. 
D.  of  the  Middle  Temple"  writes : 

"For  love  till  now  hath  still  a  master  miss'd 
Since  Ovid's  eyes  were  closed  with  iron  sleep. 
But  now  his  waking  soul  in  Chapman  lives 
Which  shows  so  well  the  passions  of  his  soul, 
And  yet  this  muse  more  cause  of  wonder  gives, 
And  doth  more  prophet-like  loves  art  enrol. 
For  Ovid's  soul  now  grown  more  old  and  wise, 
Pours  forth  itself  in  deeper  mysteries.""^ 
"Another"  thus  expresses  himself : 

"Since  Ovid,  Love's  first  gentle  master,  died. 
He  hath  a  most  notorious  truant  been, 
And  hath  not  once  in  thrice  five  ages  seen 

"^Helkonia,  ed.  T.  Parke,  I,  p.  188. 
"•  Ed.  T.  Parke,  p.  103. 
***  The  Authors  Exctise. 

"*  Works  of  Chapman,  Minor  Poems  and  Translations,  p.  LXXIV. 
"J.  D."  is  John  Davies. 


34  SOME    ELIZABETHAN    OPINIONS    OF 

That  same  sweet  muse  that  was  his  first  sweet  guide; 

But  since  Apollo,  who  was  gratified 

Once  with  a  kiss,  hunting  on  Cythnus'  green 

By  Love's  fair  mother,  tender  beauty's  queen, 

This  favor  unto  her  hath  not  envied, 

That  unto  whom  she  will  she  may  infuse, 

For  the  instruction  of  her  tender  son. 

The  gentle  Ovid's  easy,  supple  muse, 

Which  unto  thee,  sweet  Chapman,  she  hath  done ; 

She  makes  in  thee  the  spirit  of  Ovid  move, 

And  calls  thee  second  master  of  her  love."^^^ 
George  Turbervile,  in  reading  Ovid, 

"found  him  full  of  amours  everywhere: 
Each  leaf  of  loue  the  title  eke  did  beare."^^^ 
The  works  of  Greene  are  full  of  allusions  to  Ovid  as  preceptor  in 
the  art  of  love ;  and  there  are  numerous  allusions  such  as  Gascoigne's 
"Ouids  wanton  verse  ;"^^*  Pasquils  Night-cap,  line  3089,  "Fond  wan- 
tonizing  Ouid;"^^**  Edward  Rainsford's  allusion  to  the  banishment 
of  "wanton  Ouid;"^^^  Henry  Crosse's  employment  of  the  same 
term,^^^  and  his  further  mention  of  "that  grand-maister  of  wanton- 
nesse,  Ouid."^^* 

"*  Tragical  Tales  (1587),  under  the  title  The  Authors  Excuse. 

"*  The  Posies,  ed.  Cunliflfe,  p.  95. 

**  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  Vol.  V,  p.  loi. 

""  lb.,  VII,  p.  104. 

*"  Ib„  VII,  p.  121. 

"^  lb.,  p.  124. 


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